Is the earlier Championship a success or failure?

[Truthsayer]

In Gaelic football in general there is always a need to ne seen to want to change it. Change the rules and a good county manager will find a new way to play and negate it.

Change the season, change the format. Even at club level sometimes there is a system that works and then it gets thrown out for no reason, other than to be seen to do something.

I think that the split season has to stay but tweaks and more time needed. At county level the provincials are the biggest issue.

The league tends to be good, and look at all the finals produced somme kind of excitement. In the Provinces Leinster and Munster Finals are going to be terrible. Connacht is tighter but no side is flying.

Ulster is competetive, but then when the teams don't go all the way the provincials are blamed for being so hard to get through...

Also, when it comes to the clubs, the vast majority can start their championship in July when their county side are out anyway. That was a big issue pre split.
A team gets kncoked out in July and yet no serious club games till end of August for no reason...

That's the failure in this. It seemed to have been changed so clubs wudnt be playing championship in the muck of winter but club championship time remained the same. Now for August-September is club league games a very diluted competition compared to county or club championship. Loads county players just head to US for those months... indeed July as most county teams eliminated by start of July

[APM]

In Gaelic football in general there is always a need to ne seen to want to change it. Change the rules and a good county manager will find a new way to play and negate it.

Change the season, change the format. Even at club level sometimes there is a system that works and then it gets thrown out for no reason, other than to be seen to do something.

I think that the split season has to stay but tweaks and more time needed. At county level the provincials are the biggest issue.

The league tends to be good, and look at all the finals produced somme kind of excitement. In the Provinces Leinster and Munster Finals are going to be terrible. Connacht is tighter but no side is flying.

Ulster is competetive, but then when the teams don't go all the way the provincials are blamed for being so hard to get through...

Also, when it comes to the clubs, the vast majority can start their championship in July when their county side are out anyway. That was a big issue pre split.
A team gets kncoked out in July and yet no serious club games till end of August for no reason...

That's the failure in this. It seemed to have been changed so clubs wudnt be playing championship in the muck of winter but club championship time remained the same. Now for August-September is club league games a very diluted competition compared to county or club championship. Loads county players just head to US for those months... indeed July as most county teams eliminated by start of July

That's it in a nutshell! But you'll never hear that from the player's representatives because it's easier to lay the blame at the structures and the GAA.

It's is a complete joke that despite the split season, CBs are still running off leagues in December. It is also very questionable where the demand is for round robin championship structures at club level. It just creates loads of meaningless games, further dilutes the relevance of leagues and reinforces the notion that the real action doesn't start until about mid-September in many counties.

Given what has been sacrificed at county level (giving up the entire summer), with a more intense season for county players, and limited benefits at club level, you'd have ask what was the point?

[Rossfan]

All Roscommon Club Leagues finish mid July now, not in November, or 18th December or next March or sometime unless we forget about it altogether.
Club Championships start 2nd weekend August.
Players know the fixtures in advance and can plan their lives accordingly, not waiting for a message on a Monday night as to who or where they might be playing at the weekend.

[Captain Scarlet]

Just on that too, teams are playing the league early in the year too. We are on Round 6 in Kildare so no county men, senior or underage and the pre-season stuff also hit during colleges football.

Like give club lads the start of the year off too. Start the club leagues in April/ May, club championship in July (even if All Ireland's get pushed back a bit) and there's still lots of time.

If we go messing with the split season in general it will be for the few, and not the many. If we went All Ireland semis in footballl on the August bank holidays and then 2 weeks to the Final...

There will only be 4 counties involved by mid-July. So, the vast majority should be starting then. Then when the lull comes in September there's county finals galore all round the country.